Monday, August 6, 2007

Pelosi's house is a mess

The presiding officer, the guy in the big chair with the gavel, was Democrat Congressman Michael McNulty, who would apparently make a compellingcontestant on Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?, gaveled the vote closed –repeat, closed – when it was 215 to 213. Republicans win. Except when McNulty got the tally from the Clerk and realized what happened, he and the Democrat leader conspired to “correct” their mistake, after the gavel had fallen.

Angry Republicans started asking questions, primarily one beginning with the words, “what” and “the”. Republican Leader John Boehner stood up and asked the same question, politely, and all McNulty said was that the “voting machine is down.” (The House’s electronic voting machine doesn’t just “go down”, incidentally: it was more likely turned off to hide the evidence of the crime.) A few minutes of strange rustlings over on the Democrat side of the dais ensued until finally Rep. McNulty spoke up again and said, “The Chair prematurely called the vote at 214-214 [a lie], while there were votes being entered [illegal]. After all the cards [whose?] were added, the final [illegal] vote was 212 to 216, nay. Sorry suckers, it’s Schlitz O’Clock!” (Okay, I added the last part.)

Except here’s the thing. The vote was closed. Not open. Not ajar. Closed. The rules don’t allow for McNulty’s personal problem with premature e-gavel-ation. He screwed up and cost the Democrats the vote. But in Nancy Pelosi’s America, votesonly count when Democrats win: so she cheated, and bent a once-proud andhonorable political party into an instrument of despotism. Jaw-dropping as itmay sound, it’s not an exaggeration to say that for a few minutes last night, the United States was not a representative democracy.